Doc’s Goodbye

Now we are in the Late Late Show studio of fading images. Only with Allbright’s infrared specs can we see the apparitions: shadows who have flickered across the box. - Some perhaps more dead than alive. Old lags such as R. Moore and J. Nicholson still hanging in there I see. Danker and Der Springer sadly gone to the other side.

A word should go to the Doc’s family and friends; the guys from Splinder, ESP Luci; awkward customers like Maldodor. The Shiekh I see has come in disguise naturally but you can’t fool the doc with those old Foster Grants. Here’s to the BB girls, Hadja, O, Felice you were my muses once. A special thanks to Kola, too I will not forget those thousand and one nights, nor will the General come to that!

The world may still be run by erseholes, Sharkhunter. I know Childe Harold is itching to qualify that. Well, we’ve got the c***s, Harold. - At least here in the box. We’ve nailed them on the head and stuck them in their coffins. They can only come back as Vamps.

Whilst we are on the subject. - I see Mart has mislaid his rizlas, well they’re under the seat, Mart – behind you. - We can, since we are all, are we not, actors in this Empire drama, choose to put a stop to the spin. - Go about the tough, awkward biz of negotiating for the peas on the plate. Even if it might well take more than just a couple of hard-nosed New York lawyers to button up the Elders and stop the Sheikh’s more trigger happy friends from tearing each other’s throats in some splatter-day Homeboy vid. -

There’s nothing much else to say. Except, there’s a tub full of champagne in ice out the back. And some eats. - Foccaccia courtesy of the aunts. Though I would not touch the quiche, Aunt Lorraine always skimps on the eggs. Afterwards there’s lemon cake. By all means go for the lemon cake. - That’s made by Mum.

P.S. Bill Burroughs is whispering in my ear to try some of that yage. Personally I think I’ll just stick – along with the Sheikh - to the qat.

Da Brigand

Da band ha’ brung guitar and drum
Dis music be for change
Da carbine make dis music dread
Wake up da woods,
Down south dey ready for da fight
Brigand deal in lead.
Da honkey eat our child
Rape our wild
Dis ting he done not right
Pretty wimmin bring da chill
Da brigand you would to save
Hallow be his grave
For da honkey dat make war have no pity
Man born brigand die brigand
So-till da end we go on, play dis ditty
And if da brigand die put a flower
Strike da blow
For freedom an power

(Adapted from the Lucanian)

Songs and cricket

Butch chuckles away.

The jihadists look merely confused since none of them have ever heard of “Pinnocchio” or “Giappetto” until Thierry reminds them of the Walt Disney cartoon featuring you know the cricket…

Eyes light up. The Karachi contingent brandish their bats; Imran as Khalid Four is known whips out the red leather.

Butch cries:

Have mercy on us! Not that incomprehensible game of yours!

What about those incomprehensible jokes of yours! Or for that matter your incomprehensible songs!

What is wrong with my songs!

Nothing is wrong with your songs only we do not understand them!

It is true, Butch says, more chortling than chuckling. My dialect is incomprehensible even to myself. Anyway, what about a rousing song?

The faces of the boys do not look happy at the prospect of Butch launching into a one of his – to quote unquote - rousing songs.

Butch, frankly, we would rather you put us the fire.

Yes, Butch, frankly we would rather listen to the Mullah’s sermon.

Enough is enough, boys! (Speaking is the Beeston boy – self-appointed arbiter of their affairs)

Hey Jamaica! - as Khalid Seven is known to his brothers – what about that reggae ting you done of Butch’s?

Jamaica shrugs disconsolately.

Man, we got no dubs.

Man, what about doing it as a toast?

Jamaica frowns with attitude, pushes back his dreads.

A Weapon of Mass Destruction

“He who pulls the strings
cioé – the puppet master –

As if by way of explanation, Butch is bending the ears of Khalids Thirteen and Nine (Eleven appears to be kipping on Nine’s shoulder).

“One day the puppet master decides he’s had enough of his show. He’s fed up with going in hospitals to make kids laugh, he’s fed up with queuing for the ticket.”

Butch breaks off ostensibly to explain the ticket in Italian hospitals, but ends up venting his spleen against Italian bureaucrats and so-called Italian “e-comunisti” (As if the wind is blowing in from Polenta). Qat chewers nodding away for they see no reason why anyone should have to pay for qat. (A thousand thank yous to the most generous of Sheikhs LeBooty.)

“ One by one, the puppet master puts them on the fire. Punch, Judy, Harlequin. When he comes to Pinocchio, Pinocchio holds up his hand.

Giappetto, he sez. Wait! Don’t throw me on the fire. What are you doing?

I am going away to fight. Fighting is no place for a puppet.

Pinnocchio says:

Giappetto, I swear I make a good soldier.

Giappetto laughs when he sees Pinocchio’s nose extending with this pork pie.

Pinnocchio, sez Giappetto, you can never make a soldier. You are just an old piece of wooden junk. You’ve been around so long, no one gives a flying fuck about your stupid education etc or whether you are Catholic or not.

Giappetto, sez Pinnocchio, I have an idea! - You can turn my nose into a weapon. Fashion it for war.

Why, Pinnocchio, you are right, sez the Puppet Master. Every time you tell a lie, we make a new weapon of mass destruction.

Hand of God (?)

Nursing his gourd of mate, Thierry is telling for the umpteenth time how he and Butch managed to thwart the attack of the one-armed bandit.

“There we were, caught between a rock and a hard place, we did not fancy our chances.”

“Not a donkey in hell’s chance, what with all those bullets pinging around us.”

The camera swivels round to where Butch sits, pipe in hand, like some amiable lawyer at the hearth.

Thierry goes on:

“In point of fact, we were taken as much by surprise as the Mullah there.”

The camera swivels round to where Mad Mullah Mustafa lies, like Cacofonix at the end of every Asterix, tongue tied and bound.

That damn Mullah, says Khalid Twelve – a.k.a. the Beeston boy. Better keep his clap shut, or they going to fix him damn good.

Everyone is nodding in agreement. The Mullah certainly got his comeuppance.

Flashback of the Mullah looking up into a shaft of blinding light

He cries out

As the AK47 is ripped from his hands.

“To quote Maradona, must’ve been the hand of God.”

Thierry passes on the gourd to Khalid Two who places his lips tentatively over the bombilla.

A discussion breaks out.

Where indeed did the shaft come from? – Was it friendly Pledeians or that aforementioned Klingon ship lurking on the dark side of moon come to check up on earthling weapon technology?

The improbable deus ex machina has the jihadistas scratching their heads at the mysterious ways of – as Butch puts it - He who pulls the strings.

Obi One

Hovering above the heads of the Cato Masked Interviewer and Sarah D, the jihadi seem to glow like Jeddi round the campfire. All it would take is for Obi One to complete the magic circle.

Child Poltergeist

Just when you woz thinking everything had turned to fuzz, a picture flashes across your screen… has the Parasite analysts running around for their equipment. The Geiger counter in the hands of Dieterling starts going off the wall at the voice of a child trapped inside an echoing scream. A hologram of the Jihad Boot Camp is being projected down into the Late Late Show Studio. Dieterling figures, then, it must be the child poltergeist who was watching the tunes. -

Postcard Bricolage

Some days later, she read, with tears in her eyes:

Perhaps it is the fault of my style – this postcard bricolage. In memory’s striving and telegraphing of events – the inheritance, too, of a certain kind of temperament. The cumulative effect appears so much defter and at times more dramatic than what actually occurs, whilst rendering the self more solid, less airy – no longer plagued by daily preoccupations and distractions.

If the writing occludes and negates so much of the above, in part this must be, too, the effect of retrospective judgement. - In the revisions of memory where we are the actors, words may tie us – bind us but they also bring us to unexpected places - something other – much more curious than we intend. Alas one can only have faith with the project – the search – this burrowing – excavation of the past – and that somehow something will be revealed in as much as what is not written as re-written.

Flying Away

To a rumbling chorus of Flying Away he bought the ticket with the old Costa Rican passport Carlos’d given him. When he reached departures, he changed his mind and put the postcard in the letterbox.

Projectors

First Projected Voice: Where are we?

Second Projected Voice: Wherever you want, you git. – We made it. – A week back, don’t you remember? It was dark outside. The seconds were ticking by. I said to you, I said:

Well, mate, you ready for some light? – You said: Don’t we need electricity for that. Give off, I said. We can make it ourselves. You said: don’t be stupid. You can’t get any light in here without a few batteries. I said: crank it up, mate. You’re the practical one.

First Projected Voice: It’s coming back to me.

Second Projected Voice: What took you so long?

First Projected Voice: It’s true. I forget sometimes.

Pause.

Second Projected Voice: Well then…

First Projected Voice: Well what?

Second Projected Voice: Got any ideas? – Sunshine, you still asleep.

First Projected Voice: Was having this nice, nice dream.

Second Projected Voice: -

First Projected Voice: I saw the sea…The sea everywhere.

Second Projected Voice: Sounds fascinating.

First Projected Voice: Wait a minute. I saw something else.

Second Projected Voice: Oh, prey what was that? A man from Mars, a dog in a manger – a crib sheet being read by an old crow – a hot air balloon swept along in the currents of primal wind. -

First Projected Voice: I saw a sheep on the horizon.

Second Projected Voice: A sheep. Can we all go back to sleep?

First Projected Voice: It was just a ship. You know. Couldn’t make it out very well.

Second Projected Voice: Oh, come on! You can do better than that. – Embellish.

First Projected Voice: Okay then. – (He starts to describe the ship) – Well, she had a white sail. Three sails, in fact. – She was one of them old ships with a forecourt. People said stern and daft.

Second Projected Voice: Aft?

First Projected Voice: I said daft, eejit.

Second Projected Voice: What happen’d then?

First Projected Voice: There was a storm. – A big one. Thunder, lightning. – A shot across its bows. The mast came down. The ship spun round and round. – Like they were in a whirlpool. They were tossed up, thrown down

Second Projected Voice: Were there any survivors?

First Projected Voice: Dragging their feet, gasping - sucking in air. –

Second Projected Voice: As if born again. –

First Projected Voice: Yes, as if coming into the world for the first time. –

Second Projected Voice: I like it. - A miracle! – A bathtub idea! You and Archimedes!

First Projected Voice: Why, don’t you believe it?

Pause.

Second Projected Voice: I said I like it.

First Projected Voice: You don’t believe it.

Second Projected Voice: Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that. Just I don’t know what we can do with it.

First Projected Voice: You’re crap.

Second Projected Voice: Okay, okay. – I admit. – I have my cynical streak. – I can’t get my head around it. – Anyway, special effects were never exactly my forte.

First Projected Voice: Well at least you can give us the speech. - The one about those shipwrecked baboons?

Second Projected Voice: There isn’t any time for that. It’s the endgame, Kuli Yuga.

First Projected Voice: It is?

Second Projected Voice: Yes. The light’s going out over Europe. Only one village holds out.

First Projected Voice: I knew it, the airports are closed again.

Voices off (2)

Voice off 1: They just got Alvarez.

Voice off 2: They did.

Voice off 1: Yes, in a salad bar. One shot to the head.

Voice off 2: Funny, I did not have Alvarez down as a salad man.

Voice off 1: Guess he was green. - What about the Frenchie?

Voice off 2: Got away with his cat.

Voice off 1: He did, the solitary sensualist! No one invited him to the party.


Back at the Parasite End of World Party, Dieterling and Longfellow appear in Roman togas; the puffed figures of Miss St Clair and Adele Wallace can be made out behind a veiled curtain. The Monkhouse does a double take - morphing from Whistleblower back to Swiftian projector.

First Projected Voice: Looks so small from here. – Can’t make head nor tail of it.

Second Projected Voice: Well, what do you expect. It’s just a box.

Doctor Destinus

The Monkhouse pulls off his jacket to reveal a soccer shirt (colours of AC Milan). He whips a whistle from his sleeve.

(Just had time to scoop up the cat before they broke down the door.)

“Telegram from Doctor Destinus.”

“Who is Doctor Destinus?”

“A dead microbiologist.”

Blue bottle and Spike in unison:

Not another dead microbiologist!

Monkhouse:

He was the 49th to die. After Mr Im. Mr Im suffered a cardiac arrest whilst eating pot noodles on a Singapore flight one September morning.

Blue bottle and Spike in unison:

A poor Mr Im!
What has it got to do with ‘im!